[sathyab]

1nt-2c-2d-3nt, first session of semi-finals of Life Master Pairs. If you like guessing queens and jacks and who doesn't, you'll love this hand

[Phil]

do I get to ask what they lead from four pups?

[sathyab]

Phil, on Aug 6 2009, 04:44 PM, said:

do I get to ask what they lead from four pups?

X from xXxx.

[bid_em_up]

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None of the above?

[Jlall]

Win the ace and run the 8 of clubs looks obv. If it doesn't lose to the jack we're money, if it does we gotta hook the spade next obv.

[xcurt]

Jlall, on Aug 6 2009, 07:12 PM, said:

Win the ace and run the 8 of clubs looks obv. If it doesn't lose to the jack we're money, if it does we gotta hook the spade next obv.

Doesn't RC mean LHO is more likely to have the key honor since he led 4th from a bad suit?

My choice is SA, HQK, then run the C9.

I don't think we're necessarily behind on the hand right now. Even a diamond lead from Q-length doesn't help that much because our entries are so screwed up.

Hooking the spade at T1 is really bad.

BTW if it goes

Sx-A-x-x
C8-x-x-J
Sx-J-x-x

we're still going to need a successful diamond finesse or a squeeze to make 5. I guess the play would go

T4-5: drive CA
T6: they clear spades
T7: diamond to hand
T8: HK
T9: club
T10: club and pitch ?

Then HK, HQ->A and hopefully you guessed successfully which major suit threat to pitch on the last club.

[sathyab]

Jlall, on Aug 6 2009, 07:12 PM, said:

Win the ace and run the 8 of clubs looks obv. If it doesn't lose to the jack we're money, if it does we gotta hook the spade next obv.

If the ♣8 loses to the Jack and we finesse the ♠ return, we will have 3 tricks in that suit. But what's our plan going further ? We still have some work to do: unblock ♥s, knock out the ♣A and somehow cash the third ♠ trick.

If we had played ♣s the other way, by traveling to hand first with a high ♥ honor, playing a ♣ to the 8 which loses, now they probably return a ♦. You can now unblock ♥s and knock out the ♣A and guess whether to take the ♦ finesse, ♠ finesse or play for the ♥Jack to drop.

[cherdanno]

Jlall, on Aug 6 2009, 07:12 PM, said:

Win the ace and run the 8 of clubs looks obv. If it doesn't lose to the jack we're money, if it does we gotta hook the spade next obv.

Is this really so obvious? If the 8 loses and ♣A is on your right, you don't have the communication to unblock hearts anymore...
Also, I think from the lead LHO is more likely to have club length, as xcurt mentioned. Seems more obvious to me to cross to hand with a heart and run the T.

[gnasher]

Why is it bad to finesse the spade at trick one? It's very likely to be right, so we're going to do it sooner or later. If it is going to fail we may as well find out now rather than later.

[xcurt]

gnasher, on Aug 7 2009, 01:45 AM, said:

Why is it bad to finesse the spade at trick one? It's very likely to be right, so we're going to do it sooner or later. If it is going to fail we may as well find out now rather than later.

LHO could have led TxxX or even 9xxX, or if he's known to be devious xxxX. Of course he might also be playing a deep game with QxxxxX. So it's a little more likely, but not much, than the original 4:3 that LHO has the SQ.

If the SJ wins at T1 and we guess the club we're making 6, but we can always make 6 on the same finesse later and we preserve the option to play for something else if we want to.

If the SJ loses we probably are going to lose the board.

If the SJ wins and we misguess the club, we transpose to lines like the one I mentioned before.

There are a lot of unknowns on this hand including

Is the SQ onside
Is the HJ 4th or longer and where?
Where is the DQ?
Where is the CJ?
Is the CA doubleton or shorter?

We know a little something about the first and nothing about the others, so I don't want to risk the whole board right now.

[sathyab]

This was the lay-out:

Scoring: MP

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I was afraid that if I lost the ♠ finesse early on, the hand would get really messy with no easy way to disentangle ♥s. So I thought I should work on ♣s first and it appeared to me that if I lost to the ♣J to my LHO he was likely to continue ♠s and even a winning finesse would leave me badly-placed. So I traveled to my hand with a ♥ honor and tried to play for ♣J in LHO's hand. That lost and the best I could now was to make 11 tricks for 29.5 MP on a 77 top, provided I could guess whether to finesse ♦s or play for ♥J to drop. I didn't feel as bad about misguessing the ♣J, but may be I should have gotten the red suit guess right

If you make a winning guess in clubs, you have a good chance to make 12 tricks in a number of ways, including playing for a red suit squeeze against LHO, which annoys you by making trivially when the ♥J drops.